Hitler's L'il Abomination - Real People in Difficult Situations

Annette Roman, who does the one-woman show Hitler's L'il Abomination, has a family history that she is keen to expose. She begins the show with what looks like a classic German Hitler Youth costume and a blonde wig, and runs through a couple routines in a German accent. She rips off the wig to reveal her true appearance and American accent.

Her family history is complex and twisted. Her mother was compelled to be in the girls' branch of Hitler Youth, but her mother's family were also owners of immense landholdings in East Prussia, until they all (including the workers and French prisoners of war) left on an extended vacation. Her mother's family included people who were in significantly powerful positions in the Nazi military, albeit they claim to have resisted and disobeyed certain orders. One aunt has held on to a knife with a swastika, because it is very sharp and useful. 

Her father is a Holocaust survivor, from Hungary, who became a theoretical physicist. But his ability to give and receive love was hampered before World War II ever began, by a cruel and unloving mother. Are the manifestations of his unpleasantness, his rages, his infidelity due to being a Holocaust survivor, or a consequence of his family of origin? 

How did two people from such a disparate set of backgrounds ever get together? In England, after the war, they met, and despite both being married to other people, pursued a relationship and eventually married themselves. Annette was the only child of that union, although her mother had children from her previous marriage. Her father had pledged to treat his stepchildren as his own, but that hardly meant much when his typical behaviour was cruel and unloving.  

One cannot do anything about one's family history, but you can control who you get into an adult relationship with. Roman touches on her relationship with a white supremacist, and discusses the contradictions of how her Chomsky-reading, kitten-loving boyfriend could turn out to be someone who is into "White Pride" and complains about how he cannot get "White Pride" tattoos, who does not want his daughters to hear anything negative about Christopher Columbus, and so on. I would have loved to hear more about why she stayed for 11 years with him, not to judge her, but to learn more about the complexities of loving imperfect people. 

Roman finds herself screaming at Obamacare protesters who casually place Hitler mustaches on Obama posters, claiming that Obama supports euthanasia just like Hitler. She struggles when she realizes a mixed-race couple of an African-American man and a Jewish woman are among the protesters doing this. Her mother prepares to leave liberal Massachusetts to move to an ultraconservative county in Texas, in order to be near another of her daughters. Roman is doomed never to be comfortable, and as she states, she owes her very existence to World War II. There is no resolution to having the type of parents she has and living in the country she does. She did end the long-term relationship with the man whose principles she could not stomach. 

I have seen several Fringe shows that are personal memoirs, and success with this genre tends to be mixed. I found Roman's memoir to be among the most successful that I have seen. Her mother and father become real people. Like I said, I would have liked to have heard more about her choices and her relationship, but perhaps that is another show.